“I am a Hypochondriac” Club

I am in a perpetual abusive relationship with hypochondria; I desperately want to get away from it, but somehow it controls my brain.

I’ve had hypochondriac tendencies (more officially known as “illness anxiety disorder”) for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure who or what to blame and the source of the disorder is irrelevant; it’s the cure I’m after.

Hypothesis theories for my hypochondria:

Throughout my childhood, my mother perpetually complained of a bad heart and threatened to faint, falling back on her stash of smelling salts in her purse.

The best birthday present I ever got was the Merck Medical Manual, which I read cover to cover like a gripping mystery novel.

The internet. Type in a symptom and it’ll provide evidence to substantiate any cancer diagnosis – or MS or blood clot or an aneurysm de jour.

The tragic stories which make you feel powerless and helpless. The healthy marathon runner who never smoked a day in his life with no family history and plagued with lung cancer.

Has your foot ever fallen asleep? How about just your pinky toe? How long will you let your pinky toe feel numb before googling it? Or will you even notice at all? I’m perpetually amazed at how we exist in a world where people could carry a pregnancy unknowingly alongside people like me who notice a pin-prick size bite or a new freckle emerge among millions. I swear to feel my egg drop each month and I promise I can feel it traveling down my fallopian tube. I’m not claiming it’s painful; I’m simply acknowledging I feel it and I am hyper aware of it. This hypersensitivity is called body vigilance. It means I feel any little thing even if it’s just my body beingalive, and I take it to the extreme.

My brain engages in a civil war: the FEAR team versus the LOGIC team. Even though my LOGIC team is armed with more data than my FEAR team, the latter plays dirty by shooting out the deadly ‘what if’ arrows into the ring, completely leveling the field. For every logical comment, my brain uses to assuage the fear, the ‘what-if’s’ throw something in to make me doubt myself. What if JUST THIS TIME it is a heart attack? What if JUST THIS TIME it is a blood clot in my lungs? What if JUST THIS TIME that little lip twitch is an early indicator of Multiple Sclerosis? Or Muscular Dystrophy? (I always confused them, but am terrified of both equally.)

Keep in mind, I am a smart, educated person who understands, appreciates and is fascinated by biology (my favorite science). When my grandfather was diagnosed with throat cancer, I scoured the Internet for everything there was to know about the disease, the treatment, and the recovery. When my grandmother was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, she asked how long it had been there and they told her they had no idea; probably years. She said, “If I’ve been walking around with it for years, I’ll continue to walk around with it.” I am not that person. I would think of nothing other than that growing blood clot pushing on my brain. I would not sleep because I would be sure it would pop in my sleep or when I coughed or screamed or yelled.

For years, I thought the momentary sharp pain I got “under my breast” was a heart attack warning. I thought back to my mother grabbing her chest and yelling out in Russian, “koleet,” which translates to “it’s piercing.” She’d gasp for breath and occasionally ask for the smelling salts but the pain was always gone soon after with no real repercussion or follow up. She never went to a cardiologist but told me the story about how she had scarlet fever as a child and it has lasting effects on her heart. She had us all convinced she had a bad heart, but now I realize she just had gas. She also spewed the rhetoric how her “B” blood type, was a lower caliber blood, secondary to “A” blood type. “I have the weaker blood type,” she would tell me, “not like your father. Thank goodness you have A positive like him.” Turns out we actually both have O positive.

When I take things to the extreme, I know I’m trying to gain control because ultimately FEAR is controlling my hypochondriac symptoms. Somehow my brain believes if I discover it early enough; if I prepare well enough; if I get to the hospital fast enough, I’ll save myself. My preparedness is fruitless; I am a samurai meditating on my death.

The older I get, the worse it is. I’ve spent so many years worrying about these possible horrific diseases without getting them, I’m sure my time is coming. Why else has life been preparing me for all these diseases? I wait and wait, wasting all my time fearing when I could have been grateful for every day without pain. I could be appreciating every day that I am not aware of something secretly growing inside me. The fear can be paralyzing; it’s dangerous in the world with terrible texting drivers and drunk people at a concert who might trample me and ticking bombs in random dumpsters, but fear is just a self-induced terrorist which will imprison you with limitations.

A therapist tried to help me with my brain’s propensity to rapidly accelerate towards the worst case scenario regarding health issues but it’s a hard program to overwrite. She tried to teach me if I find a small lump on my arm, for instance, I shouldn’t instantly google “arm cancer,” and instead just be aware of it and monitor it for a few days to see if perhaps it was just a mosquito bite and will go away. Her goal was to modify my behavior to delay the panic release.

Over time, I’ve learned that I have to understand the difference between pain and sensation. Awareness does not necessarily indicate a symptom of something else, it is a reminder my heart is beating and I am breathing. I’m also not the type of hypochondriac who incessantly visits the doctor; I’m too afraid they will find something and also, I don’t trust them. Today’s doctors’ first order of business is a prescription for Klonopin to try to quiet my overactive mind.

Did you hear that wheeze when I inhaled deeply? Or am I not inhaling deeply enough? Is my lung capacity giving me enough air? Can I make the wheeze happen again? Of course not! It’s like bringing the car to the mechanic and then it doesn’t make the noise. Don’t you hear that deep wheeze? Is that stage 4 lung cancer?

I feel like a floating molecule through space waiting to be struck by something. I walk through life avoiding the diseases like walking between the raindrops.

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9 thoughts on ““I am a Hypochondriac” Club”

You’re doing everything right. You a healthy, active, young women that has no need to worry. Don’t stress about it UNTIL it becomes a problem. Live now and don’t worry about later, there is really nothing you can do about it. You can move to a remote place with better air to help the wheeze though…

When you wrote “koleet, I laughed out so loud that max jumped! Hahah! Yet, after all that, she’s STILL alive, and so is baba.

I’m not sure I’m in your club this time but I blame Dr Google for a lot of mild cases of hypochondria – the pictures of the rotting limbs are the worst. Mind you, I’ve been worried about a tingling in my legs lately (early paralysis!!) and weird bloated stomach (bowel cancer!!) and sore back (kidney failure for sure!) so maybe I am just a little in your club. At least you’re not alone.

Well, I can *convince* you to join my club. I failed to mention how I’m “Dr. G” to all my friends & family b/c by now they know I’m memorized WebMd. Tingling in your legs, bloated stomach and sore back is definitely bad. I would rub arnika all over your body, drink 5 gallons more water than you’re used to, and maybe an enema? 😉

This is my life. Brilliant. Life is fleeting and we spend it worrying why we may have potentially deadly conditions. I can’t express enough how relevant this is in my life and probably so many others’ lives. It’s such pertinent writing and so right on. This makes me feel like i am not alone in my insane paranoia about dying of something that probably(hopefully) doesn’t exist. I feel your anxiety and take comfort in the fact that others are out there that struggle with the same worries. Your writing is art and is an inspiration. In essence, it is ok to contemplate death-at the same time living and trying to just make it through. Live and enjoy until we ultimately get the dire diagnosis.

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Writer, Essayist, Blogger, Story-teller, Clown Pimp, Mama, Cat-lover. Writing about the human condition using examples from my life. In 2016, I successfully completed a 365-day writing challenge, organically writing an autobiographic essay every single day. (Check out the FAQ for more.)

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